1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to packaging materials of a gas-bag type which are adapted to provide packaging of parts or devices of office equipment or office automation (OA) equipment, in particular, complicated, precise, and delicate parts or devices, and also slippery and/or elongated parts or devices; processes for packaging articles by means of the packaging materials, and processes for producing the packaging materials.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, office equipment, OA equipment, and office machines have been demanded to reduce size and weight, to increase functionality, to lower cost, and to enhance performance. In such background of the art, parts or devices such as toner cartridges, photoconductor units, developing units, complex assemblies of a photoconductor and a developer, and complex units of a developer and a toner collector utilized for the office equipment, OA equipment, and office machines such as copiers, facsimiles, and printers have reduced their size and weight. These reductions of size and weight have reduced durability against deformation and destruction; on the other hand, such parts or devices have increased their functionalities and performances.
Accordingly, minor deformation or destruction tends to result in a serious or critical damage of the parts or devices; thus the packaging of such parts or devices and their transportation and storage have come to be significantly important.
Conventionally, office equipment or electrical equipment is typically disposed at a concave portion of cushioning packaging material such as styrenefoam, or only both ends are supported by cushioning packaging material such as styrenefoam, then are constrained in a cardboard box, and collected, transported, and stored, as shown in FIG. 6. However, the styrenefoam is bulky since bubbles occupy about 98% by volume of the material; therefore there has been a problem that the material should be addressed by some way. Further, since a kind of parts or devices such as containers of developing agent are bottles or cartridges made of resins, such containers hardly deform and thus may be easily set to a main body of the equipment.
On the contrary, from the view point of environmental issues, easily deformable bags are commercially utilized nowadays in order to reduce the amount of packaging material as well as to reduce the volume and amount of waste products. In some cases, containers are filled with powder and may be utilized directly as cartridges.
When such easily deformable containers are employed as parts or devices of office equipment or OA equipment in a form of a cartridge, there often arise a problem that the cartridge cannot be smoothly set to the main body of the equipment due to deformation or breakage during transportation or due to solidification of content along with deformation of the parts or devices. Further, not breakage but mere folding of containers at narrow site such as neck of the container may lead to the setting impossible or missing sometimes.
In order to address such problems, cushioning material has been utilized as packaging material. However, it has been experienced that the amount of packaging material is increased, the cost for package is raised, and the efficiency of transportation and storage are decreased due to enlarged package, when the parts or devices are contained in boxes made of the cushioning material. In addition, the boxes containing parts or devices of office equipment or OA equipment should usually be stored in a certain direction in order to prevent the breakage or deformation of the parts or devices.
As such, novel packaging materials and/or packaging processes are demanded in the art that afford to collect, transport, and store parts or devices of office equipment or OA equipment without occurrences of breakage and deformation, and allow to take out easily from the package while providing sufficient cushioning effect; and also the volume reduction, collection, and reuse are easily carried out economically after the usage.
Japanese Utility Model Registration (JP-Y) No. 3039149 proposes a partitioned corrugated box for package and protection of two articles, in which a corrugated box is partitioned; thereby deformation of contained articles is reduced. However, in the partitioned corrugated box capable of containing two articles, if the articles are sold separately, either of the two articles should be sold; the deformation of the container shape and the solidification of the content may lead to failure of setting to the main body of the equipment, when the article is not utilized immediately. Further, the increased amount of the cushioning material brings about raise of packaging cost and increase of waste packaging material; and enlarged package boxes themselves result in decrease of transporting efficiency. In addition, the partitioned corrugated boxes typically present a rectangular shape, namely, narrowing the design range.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2002-145264 discloses a package structure for litho printing board 114 as shown in FIG. 7, in which intermediate package body 110 is stacked on pallet portion 128 of box pallet 126 and stored in box portion 129, plural air bags 148 are inserted into the space between box portion 129 of box pallet 126 and intermediate package body packed by package members 142, 144; pressured air is filled into the air bags depending on the space volume between box portion 129 and intermediate package body 110. Air bags 148 filled with pressured air can constrain intermediate package body 110 stored in box portion 129, and can protect bundle 113 by cushioning outer shock.
As a result, various litho printing boards having different sizes are allegedly packed in a simple fashion without altering the size of packaging material for the various litho printing boards, and also the packaging material after usage can be effectively recycled. However, when corrugated boxes are utilized for package boxes in the process, moisture may effect adversely on the content, thus the protection of the content is not perfectly reliable.
Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-Open (JP-U) No. 6-51178 discloses a packaging device for packaging precision electronic parts or devices as shown in FIG. 8, in which the device includes first cushioning member 81 and second cushioning member 82 of bag-like vinyl sheet that are formed by arranging plural concave disposing portions 84, 85 for sustaining electronic parts or devices; connecting portion 83 formed by folding and duplicating the cushioning members 81, 82 and connected freely; an air inlet provided at the first cushioning material 81; and connecting path 83 to connect the inside of cushioning members 81, 82; wherein the parts or devices are gripped and sustained between disposing portion 84 of the first cushioning member 81 filled with air and the opposite disposing portion 85 of the second cushioning member 82.
In the packaging device, the packaging of precision electronic parts or devices may be carried out easily, and the cushioning member may be properly handled, and also the space for storing may be reduced. However, in the packaging device, the first cushioning member 81 and second cushioning member 82 of bag-like vinyl sheet cannot cover the precision electronic parts or devices sufficiently or perfectly.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2000-62850 discloses a packaging device for packaging articles such as copiers as shown in FIG. 9, in which two cushioning members 913 filled with air are wrapped around article 902 such as a copier to be packaged, supporting pillars 907 are inserted at the end of each cushioning material 913, adjacent supporting pillars 907 are connected by connecting member 903, and a valve is provided to cushioning material 913 into which air is injected, which is intended to package articles such as copiers easily, and to remove the package easily, to protect the articles certainly, and to decompose and transport easily after usages.
However, the packaging device is intended to package articles having relatively large size such as copiers, thus is not suitable to apply to parts or devices of office equipment or OA equipment.